Inner Scorecard
by VoidOfEclipse
Summary: Donnie tallies the points during one of Leo and Raph's infamous fights. One-Shot


Inner Scorecard

Donnie had just been innocently studying the recent data he and his brothers had collected from a new piece of Kraang tech when he heard the argument break out in the kitchen. His russet eyes flicked from the screen to where the noises were emanating from. Though he couldn't make out what was being said, Leo and Raph's tones were obvious enough for him to discern that they had come to yet another disagreement about something. Leonardo's voice had become authoritative and cold while Raphael's had developed a demeaning and dismissive ring to it. They were both tones that Donatello had come to recognize over the past few years. And it would seem that he wasn't the only one able to pick up on the hostilities.

"There they go again..." Mikey groaned without looking up from his position where on the ground where he sat cross legged playing his Game Cube. The orange wearing turtle heaved a huff and hit pause on his game of Sonic Adventures, leaning to the right until his cheek rested on Donnie's knee and stayed there. "Whaddaya think it's about this time?"

"Who knows?" Donnie answered with a shrug, going back to typing and analyzing. Honestly he didn't. Recently Leo and Raph fought about anything they could possibly find differing opinions on. Which was quite a lot. Only a few days ago they were arguing about the most effective way to do dishes, and their dinner the previous night had ended with a fight about the amount of pepper Raph should be putting into his fettuccine alfredo. Don wouldn't be surprised if they were fighting over something pointless once again. The tallest turtle honestly only wanted the constant clash of red and blue to stop. Their little bouts often, if not always, ended with something breaking that he had to go and fix.

"Alright then, _Fearless_ , what would you have me do then?" Raph's voice carried into the pit quite nicely, announcing the feuding pair's presence. Leo came out of the kitchen first with his arms barred defensively over his upper plastron, a glare forming already from the nickname he loathed. The red masked turtle appeared immediately after with fists clenched and eyes narrowed right back at Leo.

 _'Nice, Raph. Two points for irritation, one point for originality.'_ Donnie almost subconsciously thought, rolling his eyes at Raph's choice of insult. He really needed new material. The genius turtle kept tapping away at his laptop's keyboard as he discovered a new strain of code he had uncovered in the Kraang device's memory chip while at the same time keeping tally of the points he had given to Raphael.

"Oh, I don't know, maybe think things through for once in your life." Leonardo's tone was dry, his annoyed expression completely wiped off and replaced with a placid one. Raph literally growled like a rabid dog at seeing the collected mask his older brother had put on.

 _'Looks like Leo knows how to get under your skin too, eh? Three points for Fearless.'_ Donnie's thoughts were only in passing as he glanced up from his work as the two came closer into the pit and Mikey drew in closer to his leg.

"You know what? I don't care what you think." Raph spat out as he hurried to push past Leo and plop himself roughly onto the opposite end of the couch that Donnie was on. Mikey was already hurrying to his console to pack it up in case things got rough and the poor cube got in the way. "I know," Raph started as if he had just realized something. It made Donnie's gut do a flip. "Why don't we ask Mike and Don what they think?"

Leo snorted as both Mikey and Donnie's shoulders tensed, "Fine. Guys what would you do if-"

"Duuuuuude." Mikey interrupted in a whiny voice as he wrapped up his controller and put it neatly on top of the Game Cube. "Are you really gonna drag us into you guys' argument? Cause' that's a total shame, cause', like, I got other stuff to do... Bye!"

And just like that the orange banded turtle had unplugged, wrapped, and gathered into his arms all of his gaming supplies and was already bolting up the makeshift stairs to his own room. Three sets of eyes could barely follow the speedy ninja as he left. _'Fantastic escape little brother, ten points. But I'll have to deduct five for abandoning your fellow soldier in the middle of the crossfire.'_ Don thought bitterly as he snapped his laptop shut quickly and tried to make an exit just as his only younger brother had. He wasn't quick enough, though, to avoid Leo as he came across the pit and grabbed the lanky teen by his elbow. Don raised an eye ridge and looked back over his shoulder to his leader in blue.

"Donnie..." Leo started, cerulean eyes filled with regret and worry, "That wasn't meant to put you two on the spot. Raph is only just-"

" _Me?_ Don't act like I'm the only bad guy here!" Raph shouted and stood abruptly from the old couch, green gaze set ablaze by Leo's words. Leo in turn did not let go of his hold on Donnie, clearly not finished with speaking to him, and merely turned his head to look at Raph. "And don't go givin' me that look. My memory ain't that bad. You agreed to 'put them on the spot' or whatever."

 _'Calling it as it is. Four points.'_

"That isn't what this is about, Raph. It's about your attitude!" Leo began with his lips drawn into a tight line as if doing so could keep the boiling rage that was oh so clearly about to pop his composure from doing so. "And if you had let me finish you would-"

"I won't let you finish! I already know what you're gonna say, so there's no use sayin' anything." Raph once again successfully interrupted and fizzling out Leonardo's words. Donnie tried a slight tug to free his entrapped arm, but his brother's grasp was becoming tighter and tighter in his covered up anger.

 _'Great, Raph, congratulations! You've done it again! I'll mark that as a nice five points.'_ Donatello's sarcastic thoughts rolled around in his head as he predicted the dam holding back Leo's wrath would burst at any moment. Surprisingly, though, Leo kept his temper in check besides the death grip he had that would soon be turning Don's arm purple. The blue wearing turtle lost the look of fight purposely in his face and shrugged nonchalantly. _'Oh, letting it slide, huh? How intriguing. I'll give you a solid eight- Mmmm... Seven for that.'_

"Whatever you say. Of course you always have to prove me wrong, so you _must_ always be right. Which means I should just stop trying to reason with you altogether." Leo said with another shrug that Don thought a bit overkill. "Okay Raph, you win. I'm just going to talk to Donnie now."

"W-wait!" Raph blurted out in an angry, flustered manner. Both of Don's brows went up this time. This was not usually how the flow of things went. "You just want to make me look like the bad guy here! I knew it!"

 _'Three points to Leo for slyness, two to Raph for figuring things out.'_

"Well, you _are_ always right." Leo repeated himself, allowing a snide smirk to grace his lips. That was the moment Don knew this wasn't one of those little spats over nothing that his brothers had been having as of late. There was something Don had missed early on in this fight, and it looked to him like the missing puzzle piece was what caused Raph to snap the moment he had laid eyes on Leo's cocky little grin. The red masked terrapin let out a deafening roar that startled both Don and Leo. The ninja leader let go of Don's elbow just a moment too late. In the next few instants both cool color wearing turtles were barreled down by Raphael, Don lost his grip on his laptop as he fell hard on his carapace and was squashed under the weight of both of his older brothers, and there was a loud crunching sound that brought it all to an end as quickly as it had all come.

"Oh, no..."

"That wasn't..."

"My laptop!" Donatello cried as he struggled against the bodies above him. Both scrambled to get off of him once they realized what was happening. Instant words of "Oops." and "Sorry, Donnie." came from his brothers, but the purple wearing turtle ignored both of them as he pushed himself up and over to his laptop. The pain in his wrist from making such movements hurt almost as badly as his chest when he saw the remnants of his laptop. The screen had been forcefully disconnected from the keyboard and long, hairline cracks covered the glass.

"Now look at what you did!" Leo suddenly shouted at Raph as Don slowly recovered the backspace key from the ground with his good hand. An uncomfortable emotion stirred in the pit of Donatello's stomach that he wasn't sure he could keep under control if he were to speak at the moment, so he focused on gathering the keys that had popped off.

"Again with this! Why does everything have to be my fault?" Raph was retorting angrily, already back into Leo's personal bubble. "If you weren't holding onto him, he coulda' gotten outta the way himself!" Don had to ignore it. This was normal, and it would pass. He just had to keep his cool for a few more seconds and he could be out of here. If only they would stop acting like he was a part of this.

"You dragged him into this in the first place! In fact, I think you owe Don an-"

In that moment Don yelled out an angry roar of frustration, whipping around in his kneeling position on the ground and surprising both of his brothers. He took his handful of keys and threw them as hard as he could at the two bickering teens. Leo moved to cover his eyes with one hand while Raph just stood in confused shock as the shower of plastic rectangles came down on them. Donatello didn't wait for a reaction as he grabbed the bigger pieces of his laptop and roughly tossed them onto the couch.

"Don't worry about it, I'll fix it later, right?" His voice came out harshly sarcastic as he stood and abruptly turned towards his lab. His brothers may have said something or called his name, but he wasn't listing at this point and made sure to slam his lab's doors as loud as he could behind him. Once inside and safe from the two outside he allowed himself to sink to the ground and let out a long sigh of desperation. His brown gaze dully fixed itself on the ceiling as he tallied the score in his head.

 _Raph; Fourteen_

 _Leo; Thirteen_

 _Mikey; Five_

 _Don; Zero_


End file.
